Last weekend, for the University’s Manawa Mai Open Day, I had an opportunity to pop down to the basement of OGGB – the main building of the Business School – for a little bit of communicating… as a student ambassador for the Bachelor of Communication.
Basically, this means I got to be one of the people that stands there and answers your questions about our degree, and every now and then, go on a spiel about how it’s the newest, shiniest degree at UoA. And how we offer all these cool opportunities. And fun new classes. And exciting career paths and talented lecturers and interesting assignments and – yeah you get the picture.
Let’s go take a look at what it’s like!
Here’s the aforementioned basement, which was the Open Day home of the Faculty of Arts (us!). Peep our neighbours and their cool decorations.
Can you guess what our theme colour is?
Walk straight ahead from those stairs, and you’ll make your way to the best stall Communication stall.
Even the robot photo looks like it’s telling you to pick our degree.
Next to that we’ve got our three majors. Be sure to choose wisely! They were all similarly popular with the Open Day crowd, and they’ve all got some really cool topics to talk about.
You can study anything from Artificial Intelligence to Ashley Bloomfield.
Sitting at our little round table, a couple others and I answered questions about journalism, scholarships, course selection, and more! Trust me – the whole “talking to strangers” bit is just as scary for us as it might be for you.
POV: You’re waiting for someone to come close enough to talk to.
We’ve even got some handouts, if you want them.
A short while in, we got hold of a bunch of cool major-specific flyers. These promptly found their way onto a makeshift chair-turned-stand that demanded frequent restocking throughout the day. You guys really do love your flyers (and, of course, those coloured tote bags each faculty gives you)!
The paper on these is really nice! And smooth!
Next door, another Bachelor of Communication activity was taking place: podcasting! With a fancy set and fancy equipment, you could sit down and immediately feel like someone whose opinions hold serious weight. Even if they otherwise didn’t.
Mum, look, I can be famous.
Upstairs, we get to have a small peek at our Open Day surroundings. The road crossing into the Faculty of Engineering was a pretty busy one – there’s already quite a few people in this photo and it was taken before most showed up!
Engineering’s building looking all fancy and modern in the distance.
Meanwhile, here’s the Business School showing off their signature magenta on a pile of tote bags – ours were red, Science’s were blue, and so on. If you’re reading this, and plan on going to an Open Day in the future, here’s a fun exploration game for you: try to collect every faculty’s tote bag! They’re free, arguably pretty good looking, and come packed with goodies.
I have to resist the urge to take one.
Anyway, that’s a quick inside look – and my, uh, inside word (I’m sorry) – on the Open Day experience. There were some great questions and conversations floating around about the Bachelor of Communication, and I’ll be talking about some of those in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned!
Andrew